THE WEIRS TIMES & THE COCHECO TIMES, Thursday, December 29, 2011 A
brendan@weirs.com inNEW HAMP SHI R E FOOL * Live Free *A FLATLANDER’S OBSERVATIONS ON LIFE READY FOR THE NEW YEAR
by Brendan Smith Weirs Times Editor
It was only twelve years
ago this weekend that we were getting ready to usher in our new millennium. Remember Y2K? It was supposed to be
that when the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve and 1999 turned into 2000, that the world, as we knew it at the time, would erupt into utter chaos as the world’s com- puters would think it was really only 1900 and every- thing would shut down. Or maybe we’d wake up and William McKinley would be President and bread would cost eight cents a loaf. People panicked. Some bought food to last them for months as they headed to the hills to live in the woods and be away from the chaos and riots that were about to take place. On the news they talk-
ed about it endlessly and scared people to death, as is their job and respon- sibility. Computer pro- grammers made millions installing safeguards and those who didn’t buy into it were told to prepare for the worst. As the day approached,
tensions rose and many were holding their breath and preparing for the worst. Nothing happened. Not
even a burp in the sys- tem. We all woke up on New
Year’s Day and felt a little cheated and disappointed. Of course, we didn’t want anything to happen to us personally, but we cer- tainly wanted to turn on the news and read about something bad that hap- pened somewhere, as long as it wasn’t in our neigh- borhood. Even another country would be prefer- able. It was only fair. After all, we were ready and we wanted some justification. Still, we never learned.
saster of all. I’m not talking about the possibility of an Obama reelection, though that is a close second, I’m talking about the end of the world on December 21st as predicted by the Mayans. I don’t know the exact de-
We continued to turn on the TV and be frightened near to death by every- thing we were told. Awful things would happen: su- perbugs that could wipe out mankind would run rampant, global warming would sink California at sea (well, not everything was that awful), asteroids would fall from the sky, pictures of Barney Frank in a Speedo would surface on the Internet. You name it and we were ready to be scared about it. Still, nothing happened.
(I’m especially grateful about the Barney Frank thing.) Last year, some crazy
evangelist predicted the world would end and peo- ple cashed in their life sav- ings and everything else they had because they believed it. Sad. Now we have 2012. It has
been talked about for a long time that this could be the year of the greatest di-
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tails of what is supposed to happen but I’m sure, right after the 2012 election is over and the media has nothing else to talk about, they’ll be telling us every- thing we need to know about the latest end to the world and, again, a lot of people will get scared.
Of course, December
21 will come and go and people will freak out af- ter nothing happens and they’ll have to hurry up and do all that Christmas shopping they didn’t think they had to do because the world was going to end. Talk about Black Friday. The world will probably
end someday. Maybe to- morrow, maybe not for a million years. It will prob- ably just happen and we won’t even know what hit us. And, when you think about it, what’s the big deal?. No one’s going to
be around to miss anyone else anyway. We’re all just going to end up in the same place. Might be fun. So, stop worrying about
every little thing they throw at you. Superbugs, climate change, Barney Frank. What will be, will be. Take a deep breath and get ready for the New Year. And I’ll see you in 2013…. wherever we might be.
Brendan Smith wel-
comes your comments at
brendan@weirs.com.
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